14 Timeless Snippets From “Show Your Work”

explore enlightening snippets and actionable advice from Austin Kleon's guide to sharing your creative process and gaining recognition.

March 15, 2024

Hello Curious Minds,

In this week's edition of Curiosity Logs, we're uncovering the creative genius within "Show Your Work" by Austin Kleon.

Join me as we explore enlightening snippets and actionable advice from Kleon's guide to sharing your creative process and gaining recognition.

From embracing vulnerability to cultivating a supportive community, "Show Your Work" offers invaluable insights for aspiring creators and innovators.

They give away great stuff on their sites, they collect emails, and then when they have something remarkable to share or sell, they send an email.
“The real risk is in not changing,” said saxophonist John Coltrane.
You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done.
“I guess, whatever you do, don’t quit your show,”
“Work is never finished, only abandoned.” —Paul Valéry
avoid stalling out in your career by never losing momentum... use the end of one project to light up the next one.
“If you never go to work, you never get to leave work.”
“Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough,” writes author Alain de Botton.
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” If you just focus on getting really good, Martin says, people will come to you.
You don’t really find an audience for your work; they find you.
In order to be found, you have to be findable…By generously sharing their ideas and their knowledge, they often gain an audience that they can then leverage when they need it
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki. “In the expert’s mind, there are few.”
in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.

P.S. I’d love to know: What is the single snippet above that sounds most interesting or impactful to you?

Books I am reading this week

Total Recall - Biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger
$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No - Book by Alex Hormozi

PodCasts I am listening this week